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Ethics of E-Mail Misfires and Facebook Complications

In the previous installment of Internet Protocol, we dove into a duo of dilemmas dealing specifically with social media in the workplace.

This week, we’re helping readers decide if they are morally bound to respond to misfired e-mail messages and figure out when it’s time to take their relationship to the next step—on Facebook.

As always, if you find yourself entangled in a murky etiquette situation, tweet your queries or e-mail me and I’ll do what I can to help you sort it out.

I have a somewhat generic e-mail address that gets a lot of messages that are meant for other people. Am I ethically obligated to spend my valuable time responding to the senders and telling them that they e-mailed the wrong person and got me in error?

It’s hard enough to field the deluge of daily e-mail messages from colleagues, significant others and friends without the added headache of dealing with a surplus of correspondence from strangers passing along chain e-letters or inquiring about their bacon-of-the-month order status. But your level of obligation depends on both the nature of the note and where it was sent.

For example, if your e-mail address is something like emergency@911.com, “then there is an onus upon you to do the right thing and respond to the misdirected e-mails,” said Michael Cerda, chief executive and co-founder of Cc: Betty, a service that helps its users manage their inboxes. But if it’s more generic and along the lines of basketball@yahoo.com, then there’s nothing you’re going to need to respond back to, Mr. Cerda said.

“If the message is ‘I am in a life threatening situation….’ it’s one thing,” said Mr. Cerda. “If it’s ‘what’s the best basketball to buy’ it’s another.”

This goes for personal e-mail addresses as well. If your e-mail address is jsmith@gmail.com, it’s annoying—but decent—to respond to personal e-mail messages that are of an urgent or sensitive nature (“I’ve been trying to reach you for days, just want to know if you’re ok…”). If the urgent or sensitive e-mail messages, however, are from a bank clerk in Nigeria (“THIS IS AN URGENT AND SENSITIVE MATTER FOR JSMITH. PLEASE MAKE HASTE TO CONTACT ME”) or are just generic spam or solicitations, you can ignore with ease.

“The best guidance is to use judgment based on the e-mail address you’ve chosen to have and the e-mail significance,” he said.

Finally, if this is an issue that causes you to think more than you have time for, you have two options: Either change your address or chronicle your experience into a humorous blog — and potentially score a book deal in the process.

I’ve recently begun seeing someone new, and its getting kind of serious. At what point will it be appropriate to suggest we update our Facebook status to say that we’re in a relationship?

Selecting the “in a relationship” option from the drop-down menu on your Facebook profile is the digital equivalent of shouting the news of your new union from the rooftops. It’s an exciting way to declare you’ve found that special someone. But before you get too click-happy, you might want to examine how comfortable you are with sharing such detailed and personal information on the Web.

“Personally, I would say the appropriate time to update Facebook status is never—for me, relationship status is a private thing that I choose to keep off of Facebook entirely,” said Lux Alptraum, editor of the Gawker-owned sex blog Fleshbot.

The upside to this approach, she pointed out, is that if the relationship does eventually taper off, you’re spared from having to reverse the status, which can be painfully public and embarrassing.

But if you’re set on announcing your relationship status to all of Facebook, wait at least a month, said Ms. Alptraum.

“At that point, you should have a sense of where things are going and how your special someone feels about going public. Do note, though, that you and the object of your affection should be comfortable referring to each other as boy/girlfriend before you announce on Facebook—otherwise it’s just weird.”

Dealing with digital drama? We can help! Send your queries via e-mail or Twitter. And if you have your own solutions to the questions raised in this post, the comment bar is open for business below.

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Gadgetwise is a blog about everything related to buying and using tech products. From figuring out which gadget to buy and how to get the best deal on it to configuring it once it’s out of the box, Gadgetwise offers a mix of information, analysis and opinion to help you get the most out of your personal tech.